Kaspersky has revealed the biggest threats of 2015, with mobile banking topping the list as a popular exploit for criminals to use in order to steal money.
The company's annual Security Bulletin Overall Statistics Report explained that the Faketoken and Marcher Trojans were particularly concerning for the banking industry, forcing a user to install an application on their smartphone that tracks the launch of a European's bank's mobile app and Google Play. If either Google Play or the mobile banking app is opened, a pop up requests credit card details which are then sent to fraudsters.
"This year cyber criminals focused time and resources in developing malicious financial programs for mobile devices," Yury Namestnikov, senior security researcher at Kaspersky Lab's global research and analysis team, Kaspersky Lab. "This is not surprising as millions of people worldwide now use their smartphone to pay for services and goods. Based on current trends, we can assume that next year, mobile banking malware will account for an even greater share."
The report also revealed that criminals are now looking at more innovative ways to attack, including the use of ransomware to defraud users directly and adware, which accounted for 12 of the 20 web-based attacks Kaspersky examined in this year's report.
One in six ransomware attacks originated from an Android device, while the number of attacks using this method increased by 48.3 per cent year-on-year.
New techniques used by cyber criminals to steal data and hack into machines included the use of masking exploits, shellcodes and payloads to cover up infections and malware attacks, meaning they often go undetected and those carrying out the attacks stay safe from prosecution. Kaspersky noted an increase in the use of the Diffie-Hellman encryption protocol and concealed exploit packs in Flash objects this year.
